Rotorhead friends,
I posed a question in military aviation, which no-one seems to be able to answer yet - wondering if you all might have any insights.
Above is Bell's latest concept for a high speed jet tiltrotor.
No doubt if they're floating this idea - they've answered the question I have, but I've reproduced it below to see if any of you can explain?
I hope my question is clear enough.
Translation from stowed high speed flight to rotorborne flight could be interesting.
The Osprey doesn't fold it's rotors - and it transitions from a mid-speed turboprop to a helicopter by trading thrust vector for lift - right?
But this thing would transition from pure jet, through turbo-prop to helicopter.
What speed would you need to decelerate to, to be able to fully deploy (presumably) feathered rotors into the airstream, yet still support the vehicle's weight in wingborne flight?
Actuators would need to be very powerful to deploy long rotors into an airstream that would have to be fast enough to support wingborne flight at vehicle MAUW and the rotors would have to be damn stiff and strong to withstand that airload.
Is it then a gradual transition from turbojet to turboprop mode - increase in pitch - thrust from jet exhaust transitioning to propeller thrust?
Am I missing something here?
Can't quite picture how the transition between modes of propulsion would work... but then I'm no aerospace engineer.